captjns

And the Kool-aide flavor of the day is?

There are not many travel options between countries in Asia. Different story for domestic travel in Japan. Oh by the way, most of the time a traveller is still in the US after 3 hours of air travel with much more travel options to boot. I just don't see how Family can reinvent the concept of low cost travel with so many failed attempts, let alone build a better mouse trap.

But what the heck... have at it.

travelnate

If they focus on the core routes they could do OK in Vegas... National Airlines certainly had no problems filling 757s... although Vegas is evolving and different now, it has like 9,000 more rooms than when N7 was around.

I can see them doing a mix of long & short haul flying in cattle-car configurations in this plane, and ending the day with more in the bank.

And I'm NOT affiliated with Family Airlines - but I think the business model could work if done properly.

i121ADX

No chance. Allegiant owns LAS as the LCC. Their loads are at what, 92%?

travelnate

They're also only taking 150 folks around at a time to third-tier markets.

If they had a few flights a day in a 480 seat 747 to LAX, 2 to ORD, 2 to JFK, 2 to MIA, 2 to SFO they could probably make it work.

HP-US failed in the market by downsizing and moving fewer passengers. This has been an industry effect and failure of the hub & spoke system (same amount of flights feeding smaller planes = fewer seats = fewer pax).. I remember a time when ORD/LAS was flown by nothing but UAL & AA DC-10s.

With 747's going as low as $10 - $20 million, its safe to say you could lease one for $200,000 a month. Insurance would be $75,000 / mo. Ownership & insurance would be about $1,200 - $1,300 an hour.

captjns

Depending on the specific model of 747, performance will be an issue on the longer routes May through September.

travelnate

I'm always skeptical, and 95% of the posters are pessimists.. but what if... these guys really do pull it of?? think of the jobs they could provide, the lower fares into Las Vegas...

Its boring to go to LAS today and see nothing but 737s and A320s all over.

i121ADX

I'm not a pesimist at all. But the fact is you've got Allegiant who is proffitable at $150/bbl using MD-8X's will annialate 747's. I honestly don't think you could fill a 747 in this economy (On those routes). They sound great on paper, but it's like communism, it's not pretty when in action.

cactusmike

AWA and SWA made money in LAS at 7 and 8 cents/seat mile. US Airways at 14 cents/mile cannot. National did not make money with the 757s.

AWA did run 747s between LAS and JFK and PHX and JFK. We did not make money on those routes with the 747 because the costs were too high for the yield. And the jets were full for the most part. It is easier to fill 150 seats and get the price you need (yield) than trying to fill 400 seats at a whack.

See also Tower Air for failed 747 pax ops.

I wondered whose 767 that was in FLL. I thought it was Amerijet's.

captjns

I thought that HP was using the ex KLM Hangar/Bilboard Queens for the postal contract on the mainland side from JFK to both LAS and PHX and hauled pineapples for DOLE from PHNL back to the mainland.

cactusmike

That may be true. I do remember being told that we lost 350 million on the 747 program, although a lot of that would have been running a ful schedule to Nagoya with empty airplanes during the Gulf War. I was also told that our costs per seat mile to HNL were 4 cents/mle and the yield was 3 cents/mile. We did run ful 747s to JFK but I do not know what the costs/yields on that route were. I just remember that Tower couldn't make money with the 747 and they had a pretty good setup with their terminal in JFK and some decent longhaul routes.

We did have some crap 747s at AWA, the VP of Ops (Don Monteath)at the time was a moron who later went to TWA and helped them crater as well. But we had orders for 2 747 400s with Boeing and options for more so those KLM aircraft were interim until the 400s were to come in 1996. Never happened because of CH 11 but that was the plan.